Disaster!!!! (I think)

[Biff's R]

I think that he has new tires, and they have a larger circumference.

When they said that the other bike had spline issues, had they looked at it yet? It would not be the first time.

I am also figuring that the new NE Ohio fuel blend is what is giving you better milage.

[johnnyjs1]

Fastest I could go with traffic was 70mph in 6th and was at around 3800 rpm.

[Biff's R]

Nothing has changed then. I am at about 72 in 6th at 4k rpm. I have the Rockster gear box in my Roadster.

[Eqyn Dad]

Johnny:

Glad to see your bike is back at home - where it should be!

I saw your bike apart at the dealer when I was picking mine up for another FD seal leak and you are right - those pictures can't begin to do that damage justice! Your spline was completely stripped out. It looked bad.

Are you going to keep it and pray for a long term fix or dump it for something a little less dramatic?

Cruise on down to Chagrin Falls this weekend and we could link up.

Ride safe.

[awagnon]

Are you going to keep it and pray for a long term fix or dump it for something a little less dramatic?

The splines will likely fail again if the same transmission was put back on the bike. It would be interesting if you traded the bike in on a new bike at this same dealer and they lowered the trade-in value based on their knowledge of the prior spline failure. If that happened, I'd be really p.o.'d. But I could see it happening. On the other hand, I would not be able to sleep at night if I sold it myself knowing I was passing on the POS splines to some other poor sap.

[Beemeridian]

11

[johnnyjs1]

How would i know they are lowballing my trade in, if they dont come right out and say they are giving me less because of the splines? What is a lowball amount?

[jfslater98]

Well they already kind of did it once.

...$2,740 for my bike on a trade...

[Beemeridian]

11

[Lobo1625]

$2,740 offer from the dealer? That's better than what mine quoted me. With 8600 miles, bags and new tires they offered me $2,500. Say nothing about the $8,600 rockster they had sitting on the floor.. Dealer trade ins are a joke. I doubt they were lowballing you because of the splines, Now knowing that they've just been replaced, a future owner wouldn't be claiming that failure if they sold it.

Johny, if you still have the failed parts shoot me a PM. Boxermania sent me the ones that he had and I've accumulated another disk from a failed bike. My efforts to talk to Getrag about this issue has resulted in a "We're sorry you're having trouble with your BMW, but we just supplied the transmission, we can't help you" attitude.

Glad you got your bike back, but sorry that it was such an ordeal.

[Sparky]

I'm a little confused about something from a lot earlier in your story.

If I'm reading things correctly, the BMW regional rep came out and denied coverage for the damage -- but the bike wasn't actually taken apart so there was nothing for him to inspect. Am I correct in this?

If that's the case, then I would immediately escalate my complaint to his superiors along with a complaint about his performance (and the dealer's behavior, too).

Or am I reading it wrong?

Nope, you are absolutely correct. The Rep. didnt inspect the bike at all. He said "The bike is almost 2 yrs out of warranty, tough luck." Funny thing is, when I went to pick up my bike, the service manager pointed to another bike on the lift with the SAME exact problem.... clutch spline failure. So thats at least 4 bikes that I have physically seen at that shop including mine in the past month. BMW-"No, there is no problem with the clutch splines."

So, why not escalate it beyond the rep? DO IT IN WRITING! Send a copy to as many people who you might have some influence -- including the head of BMW North America, the regional reps immediate superior, BMW in Germany -- basically anyone you can think of. Then make sure you put a "cc" list with everyone who you have copied at the bottom so each person who receives the letter knows they can't just circular file it and let it disappear without anyone else knowing. Also set a date -- say three weeks from the date of the letter -- by which you expect a response. If you don't hear anything, send another letter to all the parties you originally targeted.

Include pictures of the damage, the fact that the regional rep didn't even look at the damaged parts, and that this kind of catastrophic failure in a properly maintained bike (include copies of all regular service receipts) should not happen -- regardless of the expired warranty.

Got nothing to lose except a bit of your time and some postage.

[CycleRob]

I finally removed my transmission, for the 1st time, with 61,877 miles (95,581km) at 8PM tonite to check the clutch hub/shaft splines. How fitting and easy to remember this date exactly 7 years from when I first joined this board. Oh yea, the splines were AOK.
BTW, I took a LOT of pictures and weighed all the components for the 2 separate spline lube and FD teardown posts to follow. Except for the PITA difficulty removing the fast idle cable, throttle junction box and the heatgun heated swingarm pivot bolts, it was an easy job that I had been wrongfully procrastinating over for far too long. The riding season did have something to do with it. I'm going to be busy tomorrow putting most of it it back together while listening to Rush on AM talk radio. I still have a too worn and wobbly FD big bearing to R&R. Also, the internally oozy clutch slave was scored and gouged from a spinning piston and must be replaced. It worked OK and did not leak externally, but on close inspection, it is near dead.

So, there IS hope for some/most of us!!
.

[sweatmark]

Looking forward to your photo documentary, Rob. And especially appreciate your comments about the procedure... for those of us with plans to inspect our splines firsthand over the coming winter.

[oiasghar]

How would i know they are lowballing my trade in, if they dont come right out and say they are giving me less because of the splines? What is a lowball amount?

Actually they will probably not base their offer on the spline failure as they know they will simply sell it as is, no warranty to the next BMW owner; They did with mine. It was not a complete failure but the clutch disk was hanging and causing sticky downshifts. I put in a new clutch with help from Dino (Lobo1625) and the dealer was fully aware of it when I traded it in. They had the bike sold in a week to someone. Considering my clutch splines were almost toast at 10K and I traded it in at 17K when the sticky downshifts returned, I am suspecting we will hear about another failure.

From all that I have read and seen, it appears to be primarily a misalignment issue which explains why most bikes have no issues. If it was a design flaw (not saying it is a great design or not) or materials issue, most if not all should be failing around similar miles. But I am not an engineer and I know there are quite a few folks on the forum that will put me in my place for saying the above.

Anyway, a member on a different forum sent me a link to his photos of measuring and fixing the misalignment on this RT and it was pretty apparent that the crankshaft and and the input shaft where not lining up right.

Also, when we pulled the transmission out on Dino's bike to inspect the splines and everything was fine, except a leaky slave cylinder. His bike was within 100 units of mine based on VIN and almost identical miles. I noticed that his transmission was much easier to install. It just slid on the guide pins and we did not have to wrestle with it like mine which took a bit of effort to get it back on.